New to forums, UK stacker and dreamer

[HonestMoneyGoldSilver]

I've been interested in precious metals for a few years and managed, partly by luck and partly by discernment, to buy gold and silver several times at close to the bottom of the market in terms of spot price. There are still some things I don't fully understand about the PMs market in the UK, maybe you can help with 1 or all of my queries:

1) Is it ever possible to get silver at spot in the UK in small (< 1,000 oz) quantities? I've watched many videos and occasionally people discuss the crazy deals they came across. Dealers like bullionbypost (and every other dealer both in the UK and overseas) will happily rob you blind by offering £19.04 (current spot + £0.02) for Silver Britannias. OK that's great, for them, but does anyone actually sell them Britannias at those prices? If so, why did they not sell to me instead? I'll double the premium to £0.04!! Seriously though, hit me up with your stories of the best value silver (relative to spot) that you've ever bought and tell us where you found it!

2) Why is there not an easy-to-find Buyers' Collective for PMs? 

3) Does anyone know the specific or general requirements for minimum orders from official mints to get at or below spot deals? I know the US Mint will give you spot + $2.58 on Silver Eagles if you buy 100,000 coins (25,000 coins quarterly). That would be $2.6 million, give or take, for just one SKU ($650K quarterly). I've heard people talk about 5,000 ozs as being the starting point for spot deals but has anyone ever successfully bought from The Royal Mint, RCM or primary miners at close to spot? 

4) i) Imports and taxes. Complex topic I know and I've been looking into it. There is limited info with regards silver imports with HMRC just giving the generic line about 20% VAT when questioned. It is my understanding (which may be flawed) that if you are VAT registered you can import silver or buy it within the UK and then reclaim the VAT when you sell it on to customers. Does anyone have experience of doing this specifically for silver?

4) ii) Then we have the question of Free Ports, which is intriguing. In theory it should be possible to import silver from overseas and not pay any taxes at all, provided your business is at or in close proximity to a Free Port. You then charge VAT to customers when the items leave the Free Port, or pay it yourself if you take the items outside the FP. I assume nobody is doing this but if anyone has knowledge or experience, I'd be very interested to hear your opinion

5) Importing from Africa, South America or Asia. The cost of producing PMs in those countries can be significantly lower than in other jurisdictions, e.g. it may be possible for the best mine in Burkina Faso to produce silver @ < $10/oz while someone like Hecla Mining (one of the most competitive miners) in the USA is more like $14.20/oz and rising (Q3 2022 figures). Here are some Q3 2022 figures for AISC (All-in Sustainability Costs) for silver:

Pan American Silver Corp (PAAS, Canada, Latin America) - $17.97 (+ 10% YoY)

SSR Mining Corp (SSRM, Turkey) - $15.91 (+29% YoY)

Hecla Mining Company (HL, United States) - $14.20 (+11% YoY)

Fortuna Silver Mines Inc (FVI, Canada, Latin America, Burkina Faso) - $14.46 (-8.8% YoY)

Endeavour Silver Corp (EXK, Mexico) - $20.27 (+16% YoY)

Given the above figures what info does the forum have on issues such as these - i.e. what is the absolute floor for silver in fundamental terms (e.g. AISC)?

 

Thanks for reading my long post. I am happy to have found this forum, peace and God bless you all 👼

[stefffana]

Welcome on forum!🤗

[BackyardBullion]

Welcome to the forum

Much of the above has been discussed in detail on this forum and by many on YouTube including myself!

Quick answers I can offer:

Point 1: not possible to buy from dealers at spot for physical silver and gold. Dealers are not charities, they make margins for profit. Some charge way more than others. They also rely on customers coming back to them to sell when the customer has no other choice and then have to settle for spot price.

Point 2: This forum is a giant collective buyer platform. I also run a buying collective independently, with much success.

Point 3: Honestly have no idea about stating points but my guess is it's going to be massive minimum orders for wholesale and if you have £2.6m lying around to get silver at spot then I don't think you have much to worry about with life!

Point 4: I don't know much about free ports but in terms of being VAT registered I do. You can claim back any VAT on purchases you make but then you have to charge it to customers when you make a sale. So yes, it's possible for a VAT registered company to buy lots of cheap silver, but when you sell it (let's say you go to a dealer and get spot) you are required to give 20% to the government for VAT charged. It's also a very heavily audited area, if you try and do anything dodgy or avoid VAT that's very serious. There's a reason why there aren't thousands of VAT registered sole trader silver stackers. It's not worth it.

Point 5: Scam city. That's not how international gold and silver markets work. If you have had enquiries about getting gold out of Africa direct from mines, that's a scam in waiting. @dicker has talked at length about learning and identifying warning signs.

Hope that all helps!

 

[ChrisSilver]

Hello and welcome to The Silver Forum  

You might be interested in Singapore Precious Metals Exchange, they have bonded warehouses in Singapore and I believe you can send bullion directly to them purchased from elsewhere, for storage with them. Investment grade precious metals are I believe VAT free when importing into Singapore itself, so if you wanted to collect the precious metals in Singapore there would not be any import VAT due (note that you may or may not need a postal address within Singapore). I'm not affiliated with them and they aren't on the forum that I know of currently also all of this information is just from memory so best to check directly on their website for accurate information. But it may be of interest to you: https://www.sgpmx.com/about/sgpmx

[HonestMoneyGoldSilver]

2 hours ago, BackyardBullion said:

Welcome to the forum

Point 1: not possible to buy from dealers at spot for physical silver and gold. Dealers are not charities, they make margins for profit. Some charge way more than others. They also rely on customers coming back to them to sell when the customer has no other choice and then have to settle for spot price.

Thank you for the welcome and taking the time to reply.

I understand your POV especially given your name and occupation. I find it somewhat egregious though that BBP offer to buy for £19.04 and will resell your exact coin on the same page for £38.04! (For a single 2023 QEII Britannia).That is predatory behaviour. Of course dealers need to make a profit but they should offer sellers a much better premium IMHO, BBY are making plenty of margin in sales. Chards and Bairdmint will beat BBY on price and even THE ROYAL MINT is beating them on price right now. Heck they are asking £42 on eBay, I understand fees, etc, but that's 20% more than other sellers when they have access to much cheaper product.

People do still manage to find spot or even under spot in some instances - private sales and estate clear-outs as well as car boot sales and so forth. I've never been to an estate sale or a car boot sale and I don't make private sales. I'm interested to hear about how it works and bargains people have picked up

3 hours ago, BackyardBullion said:

Point 2: This forum is a giant collective buyer platform. I also run a buying collective independently, with much success.

I must do a bit more research then as this really interests me

3 hours ago, BackyardBullion said:

Point 3: Honestly have no idea about stating points but my guess is it's going to be massive minimum orders for wholesale and if you have £2.6m lying around to get silver at spot then I don't think you have much to worry about with life!

Haha I don't have a spare $2.6 million and I probably wouldn't want to deal with the US Mint right now even if I did. A buying collective might be able to find 6 or 7 figures to deal direct with The Royal Mint though or perhaps a reputable supplier of theirs for blanks/bars/generics/silver for pouring

3 hours ago, BackyardBullion said:

Point 4: I don't know much about free ports but in terms of being VAT registered I do. You can claim back any VAT on purchases you make but then you have to charge it to customers when you make a sale. So yes, it's possible for a VAT registered company to buy lots of cheap silver, but when you sell it (let's say you go to a dealer and get spot) you are required to give 20% to the government for VAT charged. It's also a very heavily audited area, if you try and do anything dodgy or avoid VAT that's very serious. There's a reason why there aren't thousands of VAT registered sole trader silver stackers. It's not worth it.

Thank you for this. I was planning on being fully legit but yes, from what I know it's much easier and perhaps more profitable to be a private seller if selling relatively small amounts

3 hours ago, BackyardBullion said:

Point 5: Scam city. That's not how international gold and silver markets work. If you have had enquiries about getting gold out of Africa direct from mines, that's a scam in waiting. @dicker has talked at length about learning and identifying warning signs.

Hope that all helps!

Yes I appreciate your replies, thank you! I was thinking more along the lines of going through Fortuna Silver Mines Inc rather than a Nigerian prince.

FVI are the only major company I could identify that have a falling AISC, this is due to their activities in Burkina Faso. Everybody else is getting eaten alive by general inflation but particularly on energy, labour, shipping and then getting hit hard by the increasing cost of finance along with ESG/Greta worship. It's for these reasons that I believe the average AISC (which was $16.56 in Q3 2022 for those companies), is now $18 in 2023 or perhaps even getting up towards the $20/oz mark for silver. That sets a fundamental hard floor on silver, it can't go below $18 or a bunch of mines will have to shut down. At least that is my fundamental hypothesis and I went balls out with several large purchases when silver hit $20/oz spot. I was curious what others thought about my hypothesis and if they have any better ideas or sources of info on the true bottom for silver. 

Thanks again sir it's amazing to get such a fast and informative response from someone like yourself so quickly!

[HonestMoneyGoldSilver]

1 hour ago, ChrisSilver said:

Hello and welcome to The Silver Forum  

You might be interested in Singapore Precious Metals Exchange, they have bonded warehouses in Singapore and I believe you can send bullion directly to them purchased from elsewhere, for storage with them. Investment grade precious metals are I believe VAT free when importing into Singapore itself, so if you wanted to collect the precious metals in Singapore there would not be any import VAT due (note that you may or may not need a postal address within Singapore). I'm not affiliated with them and they aren't on the forum that I know of currently also all of this information is just from memory so best to check directly on their website for accurate information. But it may be of interest to you: https://www.sgpmx.com/about/sgpmx

Thank you sir! 

I have a connect in Hong Kong where precious metals are taxed at 0% VAT, 0% CGT and the maximum income tax rate is 17%, with much lower rates available personally and for businesses. AFAIK this market is the cheapest in the western world for gold and silver. Kitco have their Asian HQ there. Strange how HK and Singapore are so competitive on precious metals yet regularly rank in the top-3 most expensive cities in the world

[arphethean]

Welcome to the forum.

Definitely pooling resources is a good way to access better deals.

I have done a few group orders with varying success in order to access good qty breaks, but finding a supplier that is both good value and reliable with regard to shipping timescales has proven tricky. I am a full time one-man dealer but enjoy the social aspect of collective buying rather than the hardnosed capitalist approach and would like to do more of that. BullionByPost does have a very aggressive approach compared to most dealers and where their spread is somewhere around 50%-100% small dealers like me are more like 5% to 15% so much fairer on both buyers and sellers.